Social capital is increasingly used in the field of community development and the social economy. This article describes some of the results to emerge from a three-year research project (CONSCISE Project), which looked at the contribution social capital can make to the social economy within local economic development. Following the definition of social capital, the article examines how it can b...

All of the recent empirical work on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth has used inequality data that are not consistently measured. This paper argues that this is inappropriate and shows that the significant negative correlation often found between income inequality and growth across countries is not robust when income inequality is measured in a consistent manner. H...

Many empirical studies have shown that economic growth generally leads to a drop in poverty. These studies have also pointed out that a given growth rate is compatible with a large range of outcomes in terms of poverty reduction. This means that growth is more pro-poor in certain cases than in others. Using complete and partial poverty orderings, this paper suggests a measure which captures the...

Research and development and innovation has an indisputable role in increasing the economic competitiveness of a country or a region and also indirectly in creating social welfare (Pitti 2006). Theoretical and practical professionals have been interested in this issue for decades, what is more for centuries. However it was not always called research and development and innovation but simply tec...

Growth, Development, and Technological Change The theory of endogenous technical change has deeply contributed to our understanding of the fundamental sources of economic growth and development. In this chapter we survey important contributions in the field by focussing on the basic structure of endogenous growth models with horizontal as well as vertical innovation and emphasizing important im...

We set up a theoretical framework to analyse the role of economic growth and technological progress in the erosion of social capital. Under certain conditions on parameters, the relationship between technological progress and social capital can take the shape of an inverted U curve. Furthermore, we show the circumstances that allow the economy to follow trajectories where the stock of social ca...

Many scholars ask—either implicitly or explicitly—why anyone should study entrepreneurship. Data are difficult to obtain, theory is underdeveloped, and many findings to date are the same as those obtained in other areas of business, although differences in legitimacy and value as well as in the practical and theoretical importance of studying entrepreneurship exist. However, since the publicati...

The emergence of the so-called “European Paradox” shows that increasing Governmental R&D Investment is far from being a ‘panacea’ for stagnant growth. Surprisingly, Governmental R&D Employment does not contribute to ‘mass-market’ employment, despite its important role in reducing YouthUnemployment. Despite the negative side-effect of Governmental R&D Employment on economic growth, University R&...

Social norms are often posited as an explanation of differences in the economic behavior and performance of societies that are difficult to explain by differences in endowments and technology. The successful integration of social norms into economic models requires an understanding of the basis of the differences in preferences that lead to different behaviors. I explore the difference between ...

Policy reform can remove obstacles to intergenerational social mobility and thereby promote equality of opportunities across individuals. Such reform will also enhance economic growth by allocating human resources to their best use. This chapter assesses recent crosscountry patterns in intergenerational social mobility and examines the role that public policies play in affecting mobility. Inter...